Poetry 2014 / Volume 45

The Opening — Jeffrey Zable

Hello my name is Tristan Tzara and I’m writing to you
with an invisible fountain pen. My words will tell you if
you should come one step closer or take two steps back.
They will tell you what to eat, who to eat with, and what
part of the person to eat first should it come to that. They
will follow you to the cleaners, the taxidermist, and down
a manhole where in the darkness you will discover a new
world much brighter than the one you thought you knew.
They will allow you to become a prince, a putz, a gopher,
or a golfer if you practice with a flyswatter while dressed
in blue. They will give you encouragement as you climb
that mountain with little more than a bottle of red and an
old bag of cookies in which the ants sucked out the cream.
They will dance for you, a rumba, a tango and even a Pango
which is a new form of falling to the floor and declaring
your independence. In spite of everything you once believed,
you came, you saw, and eventually conquered a multitude
of shadows that slept there beside you and dreamed they
were you on a long hot journey to suicide and redemption
in the annals of eternity, opening the doors to your eyes.

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